My Christmas Stalker (2 page)

    “You could if you saved every pay check for a year!” The blonde lifted her arm and looked at the tag. She gasped in return and clamped her hand over her mouth.

     “$2200!” She mumbled behind her hand. She turned to head back to the dressing room. “I am getting out of this thing before something happens to it!” Nora grabbed her hand.

     “Oh, just one more minute!” Her friend begged. “How much is mine?” Whitley found the tag and rolled her eyes. “How much?” Nora demanded.

     “$1800,” Whitley said with a grimace.  Nora’s shoulder’s drooped.

      “Oh, this is such a cruel world!” She turned to look at herself in the mirror. “Oh, if only Fairy Godmothers were real, then I could have a beautiful dress for the ball.”

      Whitley pulled her hair up off her shoulders and turned this way and that. “I would wear my hair up, maybe with a few ringlets.” She turned her head to the side, then dropped her hair back down the length of her back. It reached just above her hips.

    
David groaned inwardly.
She was so beautiful.

     The two girls linked arms and left the saloon to change.

     “Zoom in on her hand. Is she wearing a ring?” David’s heart was hammering. Jeff rewound the footage and froze a frame. He zoomed in. His hands maneuvering the knobs like a pro.

     “There—is a ring. Right hand!” David said with relief. “Zoom in more.”

      The two men moved closer to the screen. “Well, you lucky dog!” Jeff whistled.

    “That is a CTR ring, isn’t it?” David said with a wide grin. “Tell me I am not seeing things.” A CTR ring was a common symbol among the members of his new religion. It reminded them to make good choices, in other words, ‘Choose The Right’. CTR.

     “You are not dreaming, dude.” He worked the switches again and brought Nora’s face into closer view.

     “Oh, man.” Jeff expelled a quick breath. “I just found my woman.”

    David moved quickly and grabbed the store phone. “Franklin, meet me outside the security room. ASAP!”

     “What are you going to do?”

      “You’ll see!” He leaped out of the chair and stepped out of the room.

      The floor manager rushed up to David, short of breath. David gave instructions to his floor manager and returned to the booth.

     “Find the girls again!”

      Jeff maneuvered the cameras around and finally found them. “Hey! Those are the pastry girls!” He glanced at David. “Not your class, bro. Sorry!” David glared at him.

   “What do you mean?”

    “Well, Mummy Dear will not be happy if you date Miss Pauper.” Jeff smiled at him. “Good thing I am from the poor working class and my parents have no expectations other than someone of the female race with good motherhood potential, so they can become grandparents.”

     “Well, my mother isn’t going to pick my wife, thank you very much. Now turn around and turn up the volume!”

    
F
ranklin Howard was the head floor manager for the fashion store. David had instructed him on what to say when he detained the two deliver girls.

     “Miss? Excuse me, ladies.” The man hurried his steps to catch up to them just before they left the store.

     Whitley caught Nora by the arm. They two girls stopped and turned to listen to the man.

     “Ladies, I am happy to announce you are the one thousandth customer of the day and you have won a special gift!” He tried to sound excited. He glanced at the security camera mounted on the wall, then turned back to the girls.  Both had a stunned expression on their faces. Nora recovered first and bobbed up and down at her knees, pulling on her friends arm. “If you would please step this way and fill out a short form, we will deliver your gift to you at your home anytime that is convenient for you.”

     “Which one of us? Who is the lucky one?” Nora demanded excitedly. They stared at the man expectantly. He paused and glanced at the camera and then clapped his hands together.

    “Why both of you!” he exclaimed. “You walked through the door at the same time! If you would just stepped this way, please.”

     “Wait!” Whitley stopped walking. “We aren’t
really
customers.” She shrugged at her friend. “We are just delivery girls for Patty’s Pastries.” Nora’s shoulder fell.

    “Yeah. We aren’t customers.” The man cleared his throat and straightened his tie nervously and then his eyebrows rose.

    “Well, it counts if you walked through the door! You don’t have to buy anything to be a part of the Bella Noche` special promotion.” He spread his arms wide. “So take your gift and enjoy your good fortune!” He led them to the customer’s service desk. “Now if you will both fill out this paper with your name, address and phone numbers. Oh! And a time that is convenient for delivery.” Nora started bouncing as she wrote out her information. Whitley paused a while before filling out her paper.

    Something just didn’t feel right. This was too weird! Both of them were winners? They weren’t even customers! Nora nudged her ribcage. Whitley shrugged and started filling out her form.

    “So, what did we win?” Whitley asked as she wrote.

    “Ah, well…I…couldn’t exactly say. It will be a product that our owner has designated. A…ah…a piece of clothing of some sort. That’s our specialty! Clothing!” The man’s smile was a little weak.

    “Here you go!” Nora happily pushed her paper towards the man. “We both get off work at 6:00 and will be home by 7:00.” Nora’s knees was still bobbing.

    “Oh, come on, Whitley! It’s all good!” Nora said.

    “I don’t know. We are giving our personal information to a perfect stranger. Can’t we just pick the gift up here at the store on our way home from work?” she asked the manager.

     “Oh, ah…well, Miss, we have an honorable delivery team. They deliver to the wealthiest people in town. I assure you absolute discretion will be used.” The man’s face was intent.

     “Oh, yes. Of course.” She finished filling out the paper and handed it to the manager. “Thank you, Mr….” she glanced at his tag, “Mr. Howard.” Whitley then smiled. “I can’t wait to see what we won!” She turned and gripped Nora’s hand as they walked out together. As soon as they left the store the two girls paused and then let out a scream as they did a happy dance all over the sidewalk.

     
D
avid and Jeff stepped out of the security office and approached the Manager. “Great job, Franklin. You covered very well.” Mr. Howard handed the slips of paper to his boss as he glanced at Jeff. “Thank you for doing that.”

     David’s read the sheet of paper. Whitley Spencer. He liked the sound of her name.

    “Sir, if I may have a word.” David nodded at his manager to continue. “I hope you use this information wisely.” The older man’s face was crinkled in a frown.

    “Oh, no worries.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “These two girls are our dates for the upcoming Christmas Ball Jeff and I are attending. We are having their dresses they just tried on delivered to them as our gift.” David’s face held a wide grin while Jeff’s face creased in a frown at the words ‘our gift’.

     “Very good then, sir.” Franklin nodded his head and returned to work.

      “Ah, dude…I can’t afford that dress.” Jeff’s face flushed.

     “No worries, man. I got this covered.” David slapped him on the back.

     “No, I can’t let you do that.” Jeff shook his head.

     “Oh, so I send Whitley a dress and nothing for your Nora?”

      “No way, man. That would be harsh! Girls take those kind of things hard. I have four sisters.”

     David laid his hand on his shoulder. “Let me do this one time. After that, you are on your own buying gifts to woo your girl.”

     Jeff hung his head for a moment, then raised it to look his friend in the eyes. “Just this once.”

     “Alright then!” David grinned at his friend. “We have some planning to do.”

     “So, what next? The dresses will be delivered and then what?”

      “Well, the first step is
who
will deliver the dresses.”

       “Okay, I’ll play.
Who
will be delivering the dresses?” The two men reentered the security office. David sat in the swivel chair this time and Jeff settled into the hard back chair.

     “I think this is a job for my top security man. Those dresses are very valuable merchandise.” David handed the slip with Nora’s information to Jeff.

     “I think the owner of the store should deliver these special prizes.” Jeff laughed in return.

      David’s face sobered. “I don’t want her to know I own the place. Not yet anyway. I want her to get to know me for me.”

     “I get it, man.” Jeff nodded his understanding. “So, I deliver the dress and then what? When do we ask them for a date?”

     “We could include two embossed invitations. The dresses and a date with two eligible bachelors.” David suggested. They high-fived each other.

     “Or we could just start texting them like we met them some place, start chatting as if they should already know us.” Jeff’s idea was one that could work.

     “Oh, shoot!” David cried out as he looked at the paper in his hand. “Whitley didn’t include her phone number!”

     “Well, you heard her. She was a little leery about given out her personal info.”

     “So, now I have to figure out a way to get her number!” He narrowed his eyes. “What could I do to get it? Think you could get it from Nora when you deliver her dress?”

      “Deliver Nora’s first and tell her Whitley didn’t include her number.” They both nodded. David passed Whitley’s address to Jeff after he had put Nora’s into his cell phone address book.

      “Ah oh, dude, another road block.” Jeff held up the slips of paper. “They live in the same apartment!”

       “Dang!” David slumped in his chair. “Well, she said she had a date with Paterson to the dance anyway.”

      “Oh, dude! You are going to give her the killer dress to go with some other jerk to the dance?” He shook his head. “No way! You have to steal her from him before the dance. We have two weeks!”

      “Well, you don’t even know if Nora has a date or not already.”

      “Kill joy.” grumbled Jeff.

      “Okay, so back to square one. You will deliver the dress, then ask for the number to complete the store records. Maybe when she sees the dress, she will give up her number.”

      “When do we ask them out?” Jeff asked for the second time.

      “You can ask out Nora right then if you want. Heck, I will gladly be a blind date for the occasion.”

      “Okay, tonight then.” Jeff raised his hand for another high five and David grinned as he complied.

     
D
avid finally made it upstairs to his office. He sat in his large leather swivel chair behind his mahogany desk. He tapped the pen on the desk as he stared into space. Whitley was beautiful. Her voice was soft, but held a melodic lilt. Her hair intrigued him. He wondered if it was as soft and satiny as it looked. The saloon lights caught in it, and it shimmered almost as much as the dress.

     He picked up the small temple picture on his desk. He had put it there to remind him of his goals. He had to learn to make different choices when he had joined the LDS church. He had been loose with the woman and enjoyed several glasses of champagne at all the gala’s he attended in his very social life. He had always returned with a girl after such events to his apartment that he used to keep not far from the store. He had let it go, as the first step in the many changes in his life, and moved back home into his mom’s large penthouse upstairs. He thought that it would help him through the transition, but his mother had constantly paraded women in front of him. He had started hanging out at Jeff’s apartment, spending the night there when he knew his mother was entertaining.

     Jeff Carlisle had been a good friend to him for the last couple of years. He was the best. Jeff was strong in his beliefs and was a great example to David. He had talked him through many nights when he was tempted to return to his old life at the beginning. Now he was a great listener and someone to vent to when life became frustrating.

     He put the picture back and looked at his appointment book. He had two afternoon appointments and a haircut at 4:30. He hoped the time would pass quickly.

    
W
hitley Spencer took another tray of muffins out of the large oven. She quickly slipped in the next pan of croissants. She stopped to daydream a moment. What would the prize be? Probably a handbag. That would be rad! A purse in that store was at least $200 on sale! A blouse would be nice. A simple cut, something she would wear to church would be nice. It had been a while since she had anything new.

     Whitley shook her head, talking to herself. “Where is your common sense? It can’t be anything…not much, anyway, if it’s real at all!”

     Nora breezed in from the front. “Thinking about our prize?” She giggled. “That is all I can think of! I am having trouble focusing on work today!” She leaned on the prep table. “What do you think we will get?” she whispered then she let loose a loud squeal. “I almost can’t stand it!” She whirled around and went back out to the front.

      Whitley pondered the possibilities some more. In all her twenty-seven years, she had never won a thing. There had to be a catch somewhere. She just didn’t have much faith in ‘luck’. No, she was just not going to let herself get too carried away in hoping that this mystery prize will be anything of real worth. “Maybe an ink pen with the store’s logo on it,” Whitley whispered to herself.

    
F
inally the day ended and they were wiping the last of the counters and turning off the lights. Whitley locked the door since she was the afternoon manager of ‘Patty’s Pastries’. Nora fidgeted as she waited for her friends.

    “Can we run today? Do you think the sidewalk full of people would clear a path for us if we screamed all the way home?” They laughed at the mental image of two lunatic women screaming and flapping their arms, running down the streets of New York City.